In 2020 British hedgehogs were officially classed as vulnerable to extinction. This summer we started a monitoring project at St Andrew's Church to find out more about whether we have any, and what we can do to help them. We started off by using a monitoring tunnel which has a bowl of hedgehog food in the middle with strips of carbon painted on making tape, followed by white paper.

If you fancy getting your own monitoring tunnel they are just under £15 at the time of writing and can be purchased from Wildcare.

We thought it would take some time for the hedgehogs to discover the tunnel, but on night one we had footprints!

With the help of our friends on the Hedgehog Highways Facebook Group we had their identity confirmed!

After a week with the food disappearing nightly, we really wanted to see our visitor(s) in person and so we set up a camera trap, and here is Spike! A trap cam is a motion activated night vision camera. You can find a good range of examples at https://shop.naturespy.org/collections/camera-traps

Leaving food out for hedgehogs is a great way of giving them a bit of a hand. In this great photo, Birdie is feeding her visitor meal worms. If you don't happen to have any of those lying around they will eat dog and cat food or you can get proper hedgehog food at Clearway Pets on Winchester Street or online from suppliers like Brambles Paw.

If you've found a hedgehog and think it might need some help the best local place to call is the Wiltshire Wildlife Hospital. They can provide advice, and if necessary care, for injured hogs. If you see a baby hoglet on its own, the RSPCA have produced this great infographic on the signs that it might need help.

This is a hedgehog struggling in daytime who Rosie rescued waiting to go of to the Wiltshire Wildlife Hospital.

It's not just the church where Hedgehogs visits. The Wiltshire Wildlife Hospital describe Laverstock as a 'Hedgehog hotspot' and looking at some of the photos you have sent in from your gardens, we know that they are frequent and welcome visitors and that they value water and food when it is available. This photo from Andy showed two of the four visitors to his garden one evening.